The paper offers an interpretation of the way epistemology was formed at the end of the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth century as a new approach to understanding of the nature of humanitarian and social knowledge. The role of ideas of such Neo-Kantians as H. Cohen, H. Rickert and E. Cassirer in the formation of Russian epistemology is underlined. These ideas were critically reassessed in works of historian D. Petrushevskiy and sociologist N. Kareev. Special attention is paid to G. Shpet, his “Hermeneutics” and his studies in history as a problem of logic. It is shown how M. Bakhtin constructs the world of historically actual “participative” consciousness of the “whole” human being, how he replaces the relation of subject and object by the unity of the cognitive, the ethical, and the aesthetical. Rather than abstract gnoseology, rich logic and epistemology, as a non-formalized study close to the nature of humanitarian and social knowledge, undergo the scrutiny.

The Victorian era is a unique historical period of turbulent political, economic and social changes. These changes also touched upon science: the emergence of new theories and experimental data, new discoveries and inventions, the growth of the number of scientific societies, the debate about teaching methods in universities and the significance of science and scientists for the state laid the foundations for the institutional structure of the modern sciences. In addition, it is the Victorian era when a fundamentally new theoretical discipline, the philosophy of science, was born. At the heart of the article, there is the personality and social circle of its founder, William Whewell, the author of the fundamental work “The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences founded upon their history”. The author reconstructs the making of the philosophy of science as an independent discipline, considering it, on the one hand, as a product of the Victorian era, and on the other – as a tool for the formation of the modern sciences in all their diversity.

The article considers the question of how the spiritual atmosphere prevailing in society stimulates or hinders the development of scientific research. It is shown that during the period of the Copernican Revolution the broad strata of European society – sailors, merchants, artisans, the ruling elites were embraced by the spirit of discovery and exploration of the globe. This served as the ground on which the science of New Age arises. In the middle of the 19th centure in England, a new discipline arises – the philosophy of science, which serves to promote scientific achievements and the value of science for all aspects of social life. This also occurred during the rapid industrial development of England and the construction of the colonial empire. Unfortunately, the spiritual atmosphere of today, imbued with the spirit of consumerism, does not contribute to the development of science and we see that scientific achievements now hardly attract the attention of either the ruling elites or the broad social strata.

In his work, the author critically interprets the idea of the connection of the achievements of William Whewell in the field of the philosophy of science with the prevailing sentiments and social-cultural attitudes in the so-called Victorian era. The author believes that, on the contrary, all of Whewell’s positive achievements should be associated with the development of world science, with the spirit of the times, and above all, with its neo-Kantian background, whereas his mistakes and delusions (rejection of evolutionism, support for the idea of phlogiston) really resulted from specifically English conservatism and blind trust in the actual social institutions and ideas both in science and in politics.

The article is a response to the arguments by I.T. Kasavin on the emergence of the philosophy of science as an independent philosophical discipline from the phenomenon of rapid scientific development in Victorian England. The article consists of three parts. The first one supports the thesis on the formation of the philosophy of science as a separate philosophical discipline in the first half of the XIX century. The second part criticizes (a) the primacy of William Whewell in the formulation of the philosophy of science as a project and (b) of the Victorian era as its source. The third part is devoted to the discussions of scientists on the development of science in England shortly before the Victorian era and the issue of state encouragement of scientific development.

The author advocates the idea about the connection between the spirit of early Victorian England and the birth of philosophy of science. She pays special attention to the arguments provided by W. Whewell in support of “the scientific turn” of English university education. The author argues that the public intellectual discussions organized by the leading English daily magazines (i.e. Tatler, Spectator) played their role the formation of the public sphere (J. Habermas) in this period. These discussions contributed to the search for a normative consensus between the bourgeoisie and the land aristocracy.

The article is a reply to the critical considerations of my colleagues about my article “The birth of the philosophy of science from the spirit of the Victorian era” in the same issue of the journal. The main criticism is that my externalist explanation doesn’t work, since the Victorian era is not so favorable in general and, in particular, in relation to science and philosophy of science. In addition, I have been criticized for the allegedly improper exaggeration of Whewell’s philosophical merits and the role of his initiatives in comparison with other European scientists and their scientific societies. Also the critics put forward counter-arguments in terms of specific historical facts. These and other critical comments include noteworthy considerations along with dubious theoretical findings and historical inaccuracies, which I point out. In any case, the criticism has helped clarify my position, complement it with empirical evidence and point to the normative goal of my case study.

The article considers the major approaches towards the integration of philosophical and scientific perspectives on the nature and functioning of subjective consciousness. The project of naturalization of phenomenology is considered as an account of methodological unification of cognitive science and philosophy based on first-person perspective. This alliance is generally thought as an attempt to incorporate the explanatory models of phenomenology into the natural scientific worldview. The proponents of this approach, such as F. Varela, confirm that it can overcome the explanatory gap between the subjective first-person qualitative phenomenological data and third-person neurophysiological data, or at least it can contribute to the project of scientifically informed philosophy of mind, as in S. Gallagher’s front load phenomenology. But is it really possible to build a scientific theory of consciousness? It seems that the project of naturalization contains the inevitable shortcomings which render it impossible to take the first person approaches in cognitive science “seriously”. Hence, the first-person approach to consciousness cannot become the foundation of natural scientific theory of mind as part of nature. Phenomenological approaches to consciousness in the works of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty reject the primacy of the scientific objectivist world picture, claiming that the transcendental consciousness being the condition of possibility of truth and objectivity cannot be viewed from the objective point of view. Scientific worldview gives the incomplete picture of consciousness, eliminating its transcendental dimension. However, as I try to show, transcendentalism and naturalism as world projects can contribute into each other, retaining the circular relations between them. Phenomenology can integrate both world projects into holistic picture through phenomenologization, or denaturalization of natural science.

We suggest a solution to the problem of peer disagreement based on the concept of divergence in opinions, imported from the theory of argumentation. We treat the problem of peer disagreement as a mental experiment, a duel between different concepts of truth, and show that there is no winner in it, whenever there is a deep disagreement between epistemic peers. Our approach amounts to two proposals, one formulates how to handle the truth and the other takes care of creating an agreement over it. We suggest that instead of employing a definite concept of truth taken as criterion for dispute resolution from outside of it, the agents construct the concept of truth as a joint design project from the inside of their dispute and create an agreement towards it with the help of a procedure based on the of divergence in opinions. The concept of divergence of opinions opens a perspective of analyzing complex conflicts such as the deep disagreements by treating them as molecular disputes consisting of atomic simple ones. It supports discriminating between solvable and unsolvable disputes and paves a way for the disputants to construe a truth concept in their complex dispute by choosing in which of the atomic disputes to participate for the sake of their molecular dispute resolution. We also demonstrate how the conceptions discussed in the issues of the peer disagreement such as conciliatory and steadfast ways, justificatory balance and equal weight view get shape in our approach based on the concept of divergence in opinions.

This article is dedicated to the question: may the subject who uses an artificial device for storing information and consulting it literally know the information contained in this device and got by the subject by way of consulting it? Some philosophers claim the thesis of extended mid, i.e. they consider human mind as a system some parts of which may be external to human body. From this point of view the subject may know the information which is stored not in his memory, but in some computer implanted in him or even in some external storage. The author does not agree with this thesis and think that we don’t have sufficient reasons for its statement. But the hypothesis that someone may know what is stored outside of his memory might seem more justified if it could be shown that at least a system consisting from human brain and computer could have the same knowledge as that which corresponding human being would have. Unlike systems consisting from human beings and some external storages working as substitutes of human memory, systems with human brains is based on the same biological processes which provide the work of normal human memory. Can such system have normal human knowledge? The author critically analyzes this hypothesis and shows that we don’t have sufficient reasons to answer this question positively.